


woke up with your name

by afterism



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M, Hans being manipulative and terrible, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3640446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/pseuds/afterism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's an ancient curse against all those born into the royal bloodline," his governess says.</p>
<p>(or, <i>"Elsa was preferable, of course, but no one was getting anywhere with her."</i> Well, yes. But that doesn't mean he's just going to <i>give up</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A soulmate!AU that wanted to grow up to be a canon-divergence AU, exploring what might happen if Hans had a vested interest in pursuing Elsa instead of Anna. (dancing. dancing is what happens.)
> 
> This is a complete fic! It's currently sitting at about 17k, split into six parts, that I will be posting every few days or so as I do final edits and polish. Stay tuned! ♥

> i.

"It's an ancient curse against all those born into the royal bloodline," his governess says, as his thumb absently strokes the bandage over his palm. It's late; the world outside his window is nothing but black and and his governess perches on the edge of his bed as Hans sits on the floor, the opened present on his lap the only acknowledgement that it's his birthday.

"It began with a princess who chose to marry a miller's son over the prince she had been betrothed to since birth," she says, and leans forward, her voice sinking hushed as a secret. Hans has only ever heard the versions his brothers tell him of this story, the ones with more knights and blood and conquering. He leans closer, eyes wide. "The prince's mother was secretly a great witch, and she was furious to be betrayed. In her vengeance, she cursed every royal child to have the name of their one true love seared onto the palm of their hand from the moment both were in the world."

Hans looks down at his palm, instead of rolling his eyes. He knows that already. "But why does everyone have to keep it a secret?" he asks, pulling his hand against his chest. He's nine, and he's had a name burnt stark and black into his skin since he was two years old. It appeared while he was being bathed by two maids - Edvin likes to tell him they were both taken out and murdered that very same night so they could never tell anyone, but Hans doesn't believe him. 

His hand - like every Southern Isles prince's hand - is supposed to be bandaged until his ninth birthday, and old enough to understand the importance of keeping the gloves on. The pair on his lap are white and small and the only thing in this castle that's irrefutably his.

His governess sighs, and he looks back up. "The witch was very clever," she says, her smile small and sad. "There were those who spent their lives looking for the name that matched their palm, and went mad with grief or rage without ever finding them. Lives were thrown away. Family lines were reduced to nothing, entire dynasties brought down by the selfishness of princes searching for just one woman, or a princess refusing to marry anyone but her true love."

"So it's just a name of someone who doesn't exist?" Hans asks, frowning at her knees. That doesn't make sense. He's seen -

"No," his governess says. "That was only half the curse. There are those who searched and searched and did find someone with the name of their true love. Sometimes they were refused. Sometimes they even lived happily ever after. But those determined to find their true love were always most successful when they made the name they were searching for known throughout the land -"

"Oh," Hans says, eyes blinking wide before he frowns at their stupidity, and his governess smiles.

"Yes," she says, that soft line to her mouth like when he's pulled the right answer out of the air. "Names are easily lost and gained, especially when there's power behind them. There are dozens of stories of children snatched from their cribs, changelings and murderers and all kinds of people claiming that their name was the true match. It is only those of royal blood who are marked, remember, and it is only those of any importance whose names are recorded at birth. 

"If the name on your hand is not someone royal" - and Hans keeps his expression unchanged, doesn't even blink, because he's old enough to know that secrets are everything - "with a name on their palm to match yours, how would you know your true love is truly who they say they are?"

Hans stares down at his palm in pretend contemplation. It works, because he can hear the laughter in her voice when she says, "Imagine it was my name on your hand." Hans doesn't look up; he imagines the words he knows are there instead, pictures them burning their way up through the bandage. "Just for a moment, imagine it. Now, imagine what someone could do with that, if they found out. A dozen women could claim my name as theirs, in the hope of ensnaring a prince. I could be kidnapped. I could be _killed_."

His throat wants to laugh and give him away, so he keeps his head down. His true love isn't some easily replaced commoner, but his governess takes his silence as understanding, and he can see the flex of her fingers over her lap as she considers reaching out to him. "That's why you must keep it a secret," she finishes, and brushes down her skirts as she rises. 

"Sleep well. Put the gloves on as soon as I'm gone," she says, and he's barely said goodnight before she's out of the door. 

The fireplace flickers as Hans looks at the gloves in his lap, thinking of secrets, and then he very carefully puts the velvet-lined box on the bed, and very quietly crosses over to the door and turns the key. The sound of the lock clicking shut seems to echo through the wood, too loud in the stillness of his chamber.

Hans stops, and listens. The castle is full of silence, the distant sound of footsteps and things skittering through the ceilings, but all he needs to know is that there's no one listening just outside, waiting for him to drop his guard. He holds his breath until he's certain everything's quiet and then pelts back to his bed and crawls under the covers, drawing his knees up to make a canopy up to his shoulders. There's no way anyone could possibly see, but he keeps his hand in the makeshift darkness and unpicks the knot on the bandage.

The fabric falls away quickly, and the two words on his palm are almost too shadowed to see but he knows them by heart. He would never dare say them out loud - the walls have ears (and eyes, and _teeth_ , Edvin likes to say. Edvin is the reason Hans always locks his door) but he hides his face beneath the covers and mouths it into the darkness, over and over.

(He had almost ruined everything, the first time he heard her name spoken outside his own head. His tutor was reeling off the important houses of their neighbours, a long list of names that didn't matter anyway because he was already seven and his father still said he wasn't allowed to join him on any of his voyages - and then his tutor had said her name, and Hans had flinched as though struck because the gross girl he was never going to waste his life trying to find was a _princess_ , heir to a northern kingdom.

"Sorry, sir. Cramp," he had said, contouring into a wince as he shook out his foot. His tutor had only frowned and carried on as Hans slipped back into pretending bored concentration; in truth thinking rapidly as he held his marked palm tighter in a fist. His brothers could never be allowed to find out - they all knew Klaus had the name of a duke's daughter on his hand, even though he was not supposed to tell anyone, and Edvin had joked about cutting it off more than once. They'd probably murder him if they knew he was destined to be a _king_ one day.)

The fire crumbles to embers and Hans digs his fingernails over the name, reaching over the bedclothes with his unmarked hand and rooting around until his fingers catch on the corner of the velvet-lined box. He yanks the gloves swiftly towards him and burrows back under the covers, pulling them on so quickly he gets two fingers caught in one tube.

He'll wear them every day, and every night if he has to. He'll learn to be the perfect prince - he's already pretty good at fencing, and his tutor said he can finally start learning more of the Germanic languages, and if he gets good enough at riding he might even convince his father to let him have his own horse, one day.

He'll do anything, if it means he can get to Arendelle. 

 

 

"The gloves will help," Papa says, and Elsa frowns, even though she's trying very hard to not let anything slip.

"I already wear gloves," she says, and looks at the neat blue stitching on the hem instead of her father's softly upset smile.

"Your old gloves were traditional. These are different; they're stronger. You'll be able to control it when you're wearing them."

She wasn't wearing any gloves when she hit Anna with her powers. She never wears them at night, or around the castle, really - her hand is kept neatly curled or covered if anyone other than Anna or Mama and Papa are around. Elsa knows why no one is allowed to see the name scorched into her skin like she accidentally put her hand on hot charcoal, but she's never had to be careful about it.

She's suddenly, stupidly furious with Papa for not making her wear them all the time - and then she takes a deep breath, just like he taught her, and forces it down. 

"You'll be able to conceal it," Papa says, and he hasn't moved even though the fire has dampened down without anyone touching it. She keeps making the room cold, these days, even in summer.

Elsa takes the gloves, and slips them on. They're thicker, more like the winter gloves she has to wear even though her fingers never get cold, and the room feels warmer already. They must work, if Papa says they do.

She'll wear them all day and all night, if she has to, if it means she won't hurt anyone else.


	2. Chapter 2

> ii.

Hans arrives in Arendelle a week before the coronation, and discovers that the myth of the gates never being opened is entirely true.

It's more beautiful than he expected, even after reading every passage he could find about this small kingdom, imagining the glitter of the fjord and the stretch of the hills. The air is warm with the smell of salt and pine and dusty stone and Arendelle sings with the sound of the wind over the water and the distant gulls echoing through the mountains, of the fishing boats bobbing near the shore.

There are things he knows for certain: the kingdom extends far into the mountains, but only because no one has contested its claim to such inhospitable land; most of the populace lives near the water; and there's always more than one way into a castle, if need be. Hans keeps his walk to an amble, the jacket slung over his arm his only concession to the late June heat as he strolls across the busy town square.

The servant's entrance next to the main gates is conspicuous by the sheer amount of people pouring in and out of it. There are crates and trunks and carts of foodstuffs being trundled in, maids carrying huge swathes of fabric and buckets and all sorts of things his eyes skim over as he approaches the bridge. He watches the people, smiles politely to anyone who looks his way, notes every uniform until he's quite sure there isn't a single guard - and it's a stroke of luck, but he's already noting the improvements he'll make once this kingdom belongs to him. The security of the castle is _appalling_.

Still, just to be careful, he waits; falls into step behind a trio of young men with their shirt sleeves rolled up and strides through the gate, slipping past as they stop to put down the covered trunks that each of them are carrying. He studies the courtyard in the space of a breath; the two dormant fountains in the middle, a chapel to the left of the castle, the main doors locked tight as the gate; the only activity skirts around the edges, everything slightly hushed after the bustle of the town square.

It feels, more than anything, unused, like a room filled only with things covered in sheets. He keeps moving - sticks to the raised path that follows under the battlements, walking carefully until he can barely hear his own footsteps. There's a small door towards the north end of the castle, another servant's entrance that - when he opens it - he finds must lead to the kitchens, judging by the smell of baking that eagerly rushes up the narrow staircase. He follows it down; the shadows cling like a cold shock after the summer brightness but he shrugs on his jacket and slips through while the cooks and maids are far too busy to notice him. 

He has a breadcrumb trail of excuses lined up on his tongue as he strides through the servant's quarters - to one servant he is the princess's dance instructor and to another he's here to rebind some of the older books in the library, anything to explain his fine clothes that very little could ever convince him to change out of - but mostly he just walks tall and purposeful and no one thinks to bother him, as he's so obviously meant to be there.

"Sir!" someone calls behind him. Hans doesn't stop, rounding up one of the servant's staircases up to the ground floor. "Sir!" the voice calls again, young and male, and suddenly there's a hand on his elbow and Hans whips around, mouth falling into an easy smile even as his fists quietly clench.

"Sorry, sir, I forgot to say," the boy starts - clearly a servant, younger than him, slightly red-faced; the one he gave the book-binding lie to. Hans lets his fingers uncurl. "The queen is in the library this morning. No one's ever allowed to disturb her."

"Oh dear," Hans says, and lets his mouth slip embarrassed. His breathing picks up, just a touch, like he's nervous, like his job is on the line. "Is there anyone in the study?"

The boy thinks for a moment, blinking up at the ceiling. "Not that anyone's told me?" he tries.

Hans exhales, his smile wide with relief. "I'll start there, then. Thank you," he says, and the boy nods and grins quick before he hurries back down the stairs.

How fortunate. Hans assumed he would have to go through every door and make an awful lot of stammering apologies before he found her.

 

 

The problem with castles, Hans finds, is that they're very large and never laid out the same way, no matter how many you find yourself in. He's been in dozens, across as many countries as he can reach by ship. He _knows_ castles. He grew up in one.

He's never had so much trouble finding a library before. 

He's about to give up on this empty and fruitless corridor and head up the spiral staircase to the next floor when a girl comes sliding around the corner - red hair in two long plaits and a flash of pale green ankles as her dress flips through the turn and wide, wide eyes that settle on him immediately. She looks entirely unregal, but her dress, embroidered and well-fitted and in Arendelle's common style he's already grown to appreciate, is the finest thing he's seen all day.

She can't possibly be a servant. He presses his arm behind his back, formal and waiting.

"There you are!" she cries in relief, and skids down the corridor towards him, holding up her skirts as she runs. Her hands are gloved, looking small and dainty and off-white against the black of her dress. "I heard my dancing instructor was down here, somewhere? And you must be him, I mean, there's no one else around and I've never seen any servants dressed like that, and - wow. Hi," she says, and skips to a sort of stop, a few steps in front of him. The swish of her dress gives an impression of endless movement, even when her feet are briefly still.

"I didn't even know I had a dancing instructor," she adds, utterly guileless as she blinks up at him. Good grief, have people actually been listening to what he says?

He can work with this, for the moment, if he must. He lets a smile bloom, and steps into the role.

"Hans Westergaard, at your service," he says, and folds into a bow that only requires him to take his eyes off hers for a moment. His title can be held back and played when needed - for now, all he wants to see is a glimmer of recognition at his name.

There's nothing. Just a sweet smile and bright eyes that flash wide when she realises he's waiting for something. "Oh! Princess Anna," she says, and dips into a short curtsey that looks - surprisingly, considering the whirlwind of her introduction - perfect. 

She's the wrong princess. Of course. Still, he didn't expect a chance to draw out information from someone who surely must be closest to the right one. He can certainly pretend to be a dance tutor for a day.

"My lady," he says, and bows properly this time, because he can. When he straightens up again she has an unsure quirk to her mouth, her fingers gently tucking her hair behind her ear. 

"Uh. Yeah," she says, and pinches the front of her dress, the fabric whispering between her fingertips. "Were you looking for... me?"

"No," he admits, and watches her expression slide through something that's too comfortable to be shock; a kind of familiarity with disappointment. Interesting. He softens it, "I was looking for the ballroom, where I thought you would be. Please allow me to apologise for how late I must be, I'm afraid I'm useless when given directions."

"Oh! No, it's fine! And, um," she says, looking away for a moment as she lets go of her dress and tugs at the cuffs of her gloves. "I think they're waxing the floor right now. I might have, you know, scratched it a bit. And there's so much going on - which is good, I mean, the castle's never had so many people in it! But no one told me you were coming, so I wasn't waiting there. For you, I mean. Sorry."

Hans smiles his most gently disarming smile, and waits until Anna echoes it back. "Then it's fortunate you found me," he says, and watches as her mouth blooms into a grin. A breath, and then she glances down and tugs at her gloves again; the colour is the kind of off-white that implies dust rather than design, hands unused to being careful where they go.

"Is there another room we could dance in?" Hans asks, and draws her eye back up.

"Yeah, we have loads," Anna says, immediately, and then bites her lip. " _Yes_ , I know exactly where we can go," she says, and leads him back down the corridor, past all the doors he's already searched and dismissed. It's not ideal - another floor up would give him the excuse to get lost again when they were finished, find this damned library, but at least he knows this corner of the castle is empty.

It will allow him the chance to act freely. In the short minute he's known her he's realised Anna speaks without thinking, trusts easily and has little regard for propriety, and for an hour he can easily pretend to be the same; line up the words he can let carelessly slip off his tongue. He has every part of himself so carefully segmented, years of necessity and practice, that he'll barely have to think about what he has to keep back.

"I often have this whole floor to myself," Anna says, sounding obliviously lonely with it, and pushes open the tall, white double doors that lead into the painting gallery he's already allowed himself to admire for a short minute. The floor is wide and empty, all the benches and couches pushed directly under the paintings, and Hans makes a show of looking around in open appreciation. 

"Will this do?" Anna asks, suddenly shy. Her hands pick at her skirts again.

"It's perfect," Hans says, and when she smiles so eagerly at the praise he risks; "Will Queen Elsa be joining us?"

"Oh! No - I, um, I don't think she dances. Not that I've ever seen her dancing, any way. She spends all her time in her room or the study, I mean, she must be way too busy," Anna says, pressing her lips together and looking away, her gaze landing on a portrait of a woman in armour. "Especially now, with the _coronation_ , and everything -"

Hans steps forward, close enough to gently nudge her shoulder with his. She cuts off and looks at him, bright-eyed and waiting. "I'm sorry, I was only told my skills were required at the castle. I assumed it was both of you -" he says, and glances back towards the doors behind them, his head tilting a little closer when he turns back, "Although between us, your highness, I'm glad it's just you. It would be an honour to dance with you."

Anna giggles and ducks her head, tucking a shallow loop of hair behind her ear. Hans pulls back to a polite distance - she's delightfully easy to charm, but he's not here to _seduce_ her. Another step, and he makes smile bright and wide and a touch ridiculous in the corners, and holds out his hand.

"Shall we start with the waltz?"

 

 

He holds her at a stiff distance and rearranges the position of her hands with a smile, no lingering touches of skin, and walks her through the steps and a turn. She copies his instructions perfectly. They're simple; it would be pointless to work her too hard. 

"Don't look at your feet. Chin up, look at me. Tell me about Arendelle," he says, like it's just part of the lesson, like the distraction is the least important thing. It's not the first time he's found his way into a woman's confidences through instruction. It helps when they're concentrating on something else; their tongue looser and unguarded, all eager to impress him.

He hums a beat for them to follow, slow and steady until Anna's settled into the sway, and leads her across the gallery floor. Anna, after a few faltering steps, obeys; she recites a history of the castle like a textbook, and Hans allows himself to raise an unimpressed eyebrow. 

"Right, sorry, that's so dull," Anna says, and bites her lip as her eyes dart away.

"Something more personal, perhaps?" Hans says, as he leads her through a turn.

"Um," Anna says, and then, "Well, I've explored every inch of this castle -" she starts, and _ah_. She tells him about the the empty corridors she would slide down and the rooms filled with nothing but time and the the dungeons and the gardens and it all leaves an aching impression of loneliness, and isolation, despite her enthusiasm. Elsa is only noticeable by her absence. 

Perhaps this is a waste of his time, he thinks, leading her down the length of the room. The rumour of the princesses never being seen outside of the castle seems true enough - foolishly, considering everything he grew up with, he had never considered that they would be kept away from each other as well as the outside world. 

She's still the best connection he has to Arendelle. It would be even more of a waste to give up now, but he's bored enough to venture: "Did your sister ever join you?"

"When we were little," Anna sighs, looking past his shoulder. "And then one day she just... didn't have time for me anymore. She had all this studying to do to be queen and she didn't want to share a bedroom with me, and -- I tried! I used to ask her all the time if she wanted to play with me, or do _anything_ , but she always said no and Mama always said Elsa had to have peace and quiet and... eventually I stopped asking."

"That must have been horrible," he says, and Anna pulls a face that isn't quite agreement but clearly wants to be, wistfulness clinging to the edge of her mouth like smoke. It's not much but it's the most useful thing she's said so far, so he rewards her with a mostly-true story of the time one of his brothers tried to secretly rear a wild pig in his room, keeping her laughing until her mouth is clear and happy. 

"You've done this before," he chides, light and teasing, when they've danced the whole perimeter of the room twice.

"Not for _years_ ," Anna breathes. Her gaze keeps straying, but at least it never returned to her feet. It would seem churlish to cut the lesson short so he leads another round of the waltz before trying to teach her the Varsovienne just for some variety. Anna talks almost constantly, rapid and as jumpy as a hare, but it's all stories about trolls and the groanings of the mountains and the ancient festivals they have in town, none of which she's ever been allowed to attend. 

When he's king, Hans decides, he'll keep the gates open just so Anna can _leave_. 

By the time the lesson draws to an end Anna is flushed and breathless with happiness, edging her fingers under the shoulder strap of her dress to let air rush in over her skin. 

"That was - I mean, thank you," she says, as Hans loosens his cravat by a fraction. "Can you come again tomorrow?"

"I'm afraid I have a prior appointment in the morning," he says, thinking only of getting near Elsa, and a familiarity with princesses means he half-expects Anna to stamp her foot and demand that he attend her - but, instead, she nods and looks away. It's hardly a surprise. For the sake of keeping the option open, and giving himself the excuse to wander the castle again, he adds, "but I should be free by the afternoon, if you are."

Anna nods, delighted. Feeling bold, Hans says: "Would you be so kind as to give me a tour of the castle, before I leave? I can't think of any better guide than you."

Anna - wonderful, naive Anna - doesn't seem to think this is strange at all, and agrees. He follows her around with his hands folded behind his back, listening in polite interest, and doesn't let himself react when she finally says:

"Oh, and that's the library," Anna says, pointing down to the far end of the corridor, and Hans has to bite back the thrill that runs through him like a lightening strike. Every nerve ending is suddenly electric, oversensitive and aching. He didn't imagine he would feel like this, being so close - after everything, he's suddenly _so close_.

"Can I see it?" he asks, dispassionately curious.

"Elsa is - I mean, I think Elsa's in there, and no one's allowed to disturb her," Anna says, both hands plucking at her skirts. "We could go see the tower, instead? You can see practically everything from up there."

He's staring at the door. Scaling Mount Olympus would be easier than tearing his eyes away from it - but he must, and so he does.

"I'd love to," Hans says, forcing his mouth into a smile that sits like a parody on his face, feeling strange and reckless and out of himself. He almost offers his arm before he draws it back in, but luckily Anna is already half a step ahead, so eager to lead the way, and he compels his feet to follow as his thoughts lock onto making sense of the threads she keeps dropping.

Why has Elsa locked herself away from _everyone_? He considers Anna, and dismisses her: Anna is artless and uncomplicated and harmless, but any secret spilled to her would hardly have had the chance to leave the castle, so she can't be the reason. A secret illness, perhaps? A sudden disfigurement? There are a handful of portraits of the young queen in the world, and all describe her as beautiful, but the flattery of an artist means nothing. Perhaps she's a madwoman and needs to be locked up. Perhaps she died and was replaced --

Hans stops himself, his hand flexing out of a fist. Speculation gets him nowhere. He looks up and focuses on Anna trailing up a few steps ahead of him, her bird-like chatter fluttering around the tower staircase, and thinks that, perhaps, she can keep her dance tutor for a few more days.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently 'final edits' means 'lets rewrite this entire scene, because it is terrible'. Sigh. 
> 
> (also, eagle-eye readers may have noticed the title has changed! this is because I loathed it. apparently this fic is even more of a WIP than I thought)

> iii.

This is intolerable, Elsa thinks, trying to hold herself calm and steady as she hurries through the corridors. It's her fault, of course - years of having the castle almost empty, of being able to move between her chambers and her library and her study with only the minimal worry of running into Anna have left her lax and spoilt. She's so reliant on having the corridors quiet that she never considered how it would be to have them in any other state.

This rush feels like a dreadful risk, but her bedchamber is no longer safe. Every effort to make the castle sparkling clean (not that it isn't always, but suddenly they are soon to have _guests_ ) has spread to the private quarters, and the constant noise of footsteps and laughter and industrious work outside her door has left her tense and unable to concentrate on anything; the itch in her hands meaning she can barely get the pen from the pot to the paper before the ink freezes.

She's wasted half the morning, unable to leave her chamber because her control is more shaky than ever, and unable to do anything in it. 

The stripes of sunlight across the floor were still shrinking when there was finally a lull in the noise - and she had pressed her ear against the door and then, forcing herself to commit to the decision before anything could change, rushed out and headed straight for her library. That side of the castle should be quiet, at least, and perhaps give her a chance to _breathe_.

Just this last corner, another twenty seconds, and then she can relax -

Except, no, because there's a strange man outside her library, and her heart is pounding worse than ever. He's half turned away and looking up, as though studying the ceiling, and he doesn't seem to have noticed her. Worse, he's _in her way_.

"Excuse me," she says, as calmly as she can (it comes out cold and sharp, and she's losing already -), and watches as he spins on his heel. For a moment he looks as startled as she feels; lips parting as he stares at her, unmeasured and unthinking in his stance, and Elsa feels an odd flush of heat on her neck at the insolence. 

He contains himself, the angles of him snapping formal, and he bows low. "Your Majesty," he says, his face hidden.

He's not dressed in Arendelle livery, she realises, and the thud of her heart skips straight to anger. 

"Who are you?" Elsa demands, drawing herself up. There's still half the corridor between them - she could turn and run, if need be, but she would really prefer not to.

"Princess Anna's dancing tutor, Your Majesty," he says, and bows his head again, one arm pressed across his chest.

She had no idea Anna had one. "She's engaged you for the ball?" Elsa tries, because her anger is a hard ball in her chest and all that tension has solidified in the time it's taken to get from her chambers to here. Heaven knows she needs the practice in talking to someone other than servants, her coronation and all that it entails less than a week away, and here's a man offering himself up like a target. 

"Yes, Your Majesty. I'm -"

"Then what are you doing outside my library?" she snaps. In a moment, she's sure, she'll be desperate to get past again. Right now, it's almost refreshing to feel something other than terror. 

He glances behind him in almost mock-surprise. "I had no idea," he says, and looks at her with wide, worried eyes as he takes a step closer. Elsa tightens her lips. "I was looking for the princess. We were due a lesson this morning, but -"

"You won't find her here," Elsa cuts across, and at his faltering look her anger stutters with it. She takes a breath, and reminds herself to be _polite_. "You may leave a message with my steward if you wish to speak to Anna."

"You are most gracious. Please forgive me for being distracted by how beautiful this castle is," he says, eyelashes lowered, and then glances up with a look so heated she's left with no doubt on the subject of _beautiful_.

Elsa lifts her chin, a strange heat bolting through her even as her anger slips. Forced calm is second nature but she can't stop the twitch-rise of her eyebrows as she studies him; Anna is far past the age where men can become an obsession, and despite the over-large chin and the absurd flush to his cheeks this one is a flatterer. She suddenly, desperately needs to know if their lessons are being chaperoned. 

She shifts the grip of her hands, linking her fingers loosely, and smiles. "Tell me, how is Anna fairing in her lessons?" she asks, and his smile blooms wide, his mouth mirroring hers. If he finds the sudden change of direction strange he makes no comment. If anything, he looks delighted by it.

"Very well. It is a pleasure teaching someone so naturally gifted," he says, luminous with pride, and for a moment she's reminded so strongly of her geometry tutor that she can't think of anything to say. As though sensing weakness he takes half a step closer, his arm pressed against his chest like he intends to bow again. 

"If I may be so bold, Your Majesty, the princess talks of you often. It would be her pleasure and my honour if you ever wished to join us."

"No, thank you," Elsa says, startled into sharpness, but the anger is still abating. She bites her tongue and stokes it. "And I must insist on one of the older maids sitting in on your lessons."

"Of course," he agrees, inclining his head. "I would hate for you to think there was any impropriety," he says, and looks so imploringly at her that she's pressed into thinking he means it quite sincerely. 

"Well," Elsa says, and finds herself feeling oddly flustered. It's too late - every inch of her has remembered it prefers to be anxious, and her library looms behind him like a mirage in a desert. Her hands, so finely tuned to any distress, start to itch. "I'm glad to hear it. Good day, mister -- forgive me, I didn't catch your name," she says, and hopes she doesn't sound as breathless as she feels.

"Hans," he says, and bows again. Something pings at the back of her mind, like the pull of a bell from a long-closed room, but she's so focused on just politely nodding as he draws back to let her pass and getting into the sweet solitude of the library that she doesn't notice it at all.

It's not until later, when she's tugging off her glove in order to change into her nightgown, that she catches sight of the name burnt into her palm. It's been there since she was born, and she gives it no more thought than she does the freckles on her cheeks for all that they command her day to day life. 

But there it is: Hans Westergaard. The name on her hand is of a prince, of - oh, somewhere south of Arendelle, if she's remembering correctly. Certainly not some tutor. She looked up the family name back when she was still young enough to blush at the idea of a true love, still girlish and foolish and liable to forget to put her gloves on. 

It's been a very long time since she thought about him - she has much larger worries, these days, than if some prince will think she's pretty. The last time his name crept onto her tongue she was instructing Kai to unreservedly decline all invitations and advances sent to the castle, and some treacherous muscle nearly blurted out _except him_. It would have entirely defeated the point of refusing everyone. No one can be near her. No one important.

He's not something she can let herself be curious about. Elsa draws in a breath, pushes it out in a rush, and imagines it will be a very long time before she thinks of him again. 

 

 

"I sat in on the Princess's dance lesson as you requested, ma'am," Gerda says, bobbing a shallow curtsey in greeting. The edge of the door presses into Elsa's palm, the morning sun warm against her back and she's been up for hours, clenching and unclenching her ungloved hands as she tries to convince them that her perfume bottle is not a threat. 

"Thank you," Elsa says, the worry over Anna that always sits between her ribs loosening, just a little. The impression of Anna's tutor lingered at the back of mind, tightening the knot in her chest, but if Gerda was there then for a moment she can breath easy. 

"How was it?" she asks, and bites her tongue over the _he_ that wants to trip off the tip of it.

"He kept himself very proper, I must say. The princess certainly enjoyed herself, but, well, you know what young girls are like. A handsome face like that would turn any girl's head, but he never took advantage or let his hands wander."

"I - I'm very glad to hear it," Elsa says, her mouth suddenly clumsy like a reminder of her graceless departure from his company. She presses her tongue against her teeth. "Have they scheduled another lesson?"

"Yes, ma'am. Two o'clock in the ballroom, same as yesterday. He was quite insistent I joined them again. Apparently the noise of my knitting is the most perfect step to dance to."

Elsa raises an eyebrow.

"Quite," Gerda agrees, taking a moment to smooth down her skirt. "Would you like me to sit in again?"

"Yes," Elsa says immediately, before she schools her tongue and swallows, letting go of the door to link her fingers together. "Yes, please do. He might be the type to only behave himself when someone's watching, after all."

"Of course, ma'am," Gerda says. There's silence for a beat. 

"I'll be in the study all day," Elsa says, just to fill it, and waits until Gerda dips another curtsey and leaves before she shuts the door. She checks her gloves, hastily pulled on at the knock on her door, and forces herself to look at her dressing table where her perfume bottle sits cloudy and iced-over.

A different room to practice in. That's what she needs.

 

 

She doesn't mean to be passing near the ballroom as the clock nears three. The afternoon has spread bright and uncomfortably warm, her library so dizzyingly hot that she keeps having nonsense thoughts about taking off her gloves. The corridors are cooler, at least, the tinted glass setting everything towards pale green, and Elsa has a book tucked under her arm and a vague notion of going back to her chamber just to give her restless feet something to do.

The double doors at the end of the corridor stand with one half slightly ajar, like someone just rushed into the ballroom - and Elsa is glancing towards it with no thought at all when there's a burst of laughter, high and girlish and so unmistakably _Anna_ that she stops mid-stride. Her dance lesson, Elsa remembers, fast and sudden.

She calls herself foolish even as she begins to consider it, but the summer heat has sunk into her skull. Just a glimpse, she thinks. Then she'll go.

The carpet muffles her footsteps as she creeps closer, slipping her book down into one hand so she can press her gloved fingertips against the closed door, and anchor herself to it. Her gloves catch against the grain. The other half stands swung out into the corridor - the gap is barely shoulder width, and at this angle she can only see a fraction of the ballroom, just empty space and the shuttered windows.

For a few beats there's nothing but the steady click of knitting needles and the tap of shoes against a thick floor, and a low sound that might be someone humming.

Elsa holds her breath, rocking on the ball of her foot as she tips a little nearer. The void in front of her stretches in temptation - and then she jerks back with a silent gasp as Hans and Anna come sweeping into view, posed tall and handsome as they step through the dance. The hand clutching her book flies to her chest, her pulse hard under her skin.

 _Stop it_ , she scolds herself, foolishly startled by something she was waiting for and yet she's still standing there, watching them - but now she's caught, because Anna is grinning as she spins through the steps. It looks lively, and fun; perfect for her, but the tutor looks entirely unruffled even as his mouth is caught in a smile. 

Elsa frowns, that strange heat boiling through her again. His back is to the door as there's a deep murmur and Anna laughs again, both of her hands in his as he leads her across the floor. He twirls her gently until the trail of her skirts swirls like an eddying river.

"I think you've mastered it, Your Highness," he says, both of them in profile, and Elsa's lips twist. Anna looks happy, at least; her mouth clear and untroubled, her eyes bright and often fixed on him but easily caught elsewhere - Elsa draws back by a breath as Anna's gaze glances across the door. The corridor is brighter than the hall but she holds herself like a statue of shadows and doesn't let herself be seen.

Two more turns and they're out of her sight again, the swish and tap of their footsteps never stopping. There, she thinks, forcing herself to sway back onto the flat of her foot. You've seen them, and now you must go, she thinks, but the restlessness of her feet has settled to a rare kind of peace, an inertia that feels a lot like control except she doesn't want to _move_.

It must just be the sight of Anna's happiness making her feel this way, this selfishness to stay and indulge in it - and that's the thought that pushes her enough to step back, her gloves brushing down the wood as she releases the door.

The footsteps in the hall change rhythm, slow to a disordered shuffle, and stop. Elsa hesitates, more eagerly than she probably should.

"That's enough for today, I think," Hans says, clear and carrying, and whatever Anna says in reply is too breathless to make out. Gerda says something and Elsa's hands clench in surprise, a jolt that feels awfully like the guilt of being caught doing something she shouldn't - but, of course Gerda is there (of course she hasn't been _seen_ ).

Her pulse is loud in her ears. Elsa takes a deep, silent breath, hearing nothing but ringing as she drops her hands down and forces her fingers wide, and from this angle she can see the far end of the hall - she's so focused on holding herself still that she doesn't react at all when Anna appears like an untouchable doll at the opposite door. She gets a glimpse, a flash of a smile not directed at her, and then Anna is through the door and gone. 

"May I walk you out?" Gerda says.

"Please don't let me keep you. I think there might be a stone in my shoe," Hans says, and Elsa narrows her eyes at the empty space in front of her as Gerda laughs. She can feel her mouth pull strange, like there's lemon pith in her cheek.

There's a few odd sounds and then Gerda appears, her back to Elsa and a bundle of knitting in her hand, and disappears out the same door as Anna. The only footsteps left in the hall start to move, quick and certain and Elsa loosens, flooded with a sudden clear sense of purpose - she takes half a step back, ready to dart down the corridor and catch him in the act of trying to sneak around the private quarters again. 

Except, the sound of his footsteps stop as soon as they started, and he's nowhere near the door. Either door, in the half of the hall she can see. She frowns, and edges closer. Her free hand presses against the wood again as she slips carefully into the gap, holding herself in the thin shadow as the hall remains stubbornly empty and she leans closer, and closer still - until finally she can see him sitting on the bench Gerda must have recently left, between two columns on the adjacent length of wall. His jacket is folded beside him, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, and he has one ankle hooked over his knee.

He's pulling off his shoe. For a moment, the full absurdity of what she's doing pops open like a bubble, and Elsa is about to turn and flee before the blush overwhelms her when Hans sets it down without shaking it out and starts rubbing his toes, his teeth bared in a grimace.

 _Ha!_ Elsa thinks, without quite knowing why. It's a mistake; she moves without thinking, the hand holding her book knocking against the open door, and Hans looks up sharply.

"Your Majesty!" he says, and is on his feet within a heartbeat. "I -- forgive me --"

Her heart is hammering again but she's steady, somehow, resisting the urge to laugh. He looks as absurd as she feels, with his jacket off and missing one shoe. Like he's harmless. Like she couldn't possibly be moved to losing control around him.

Elsa takes a step forward, into the hall, and keeps her arms straight as she loosely curls both hands around her book.

"Please put your shoe back on," she says, calmly. His lips are parted and for a moment he just stares at her, that heat along the back of her neck again - "You can sit down," Elsa says, glancing away.

"Thank you," Hans says, a movement out of the corner of her eye that might be a bow. He folds himself back onto the bench and swiftly tugs his shoe back on, pulling the leather tight.

Elsa bites the inside of her cheek, but she can't quite stop herself from commenting, "No stone, then?"

Hans looks up, eyes wide and delighted. Something swoops in Elsa's stomach as she realises her mistake. "You were listening," he says, mouth pulled into an irrepressible grin. 

"I couldn't help but overhear. I only came over to investigate all the noise," she says, glancing away as she curses herself. The sunlight is struggling through the shutters, thin beams of dust dancing in a play of heat.

Hans is on his feet and coming closer when she looks back, his jacket folded over his arm. Something tips.

"If you wanted lessons yourself, I would be more than happy to tutor you," he says, his smile more crooked than lopsided, something predatory in the hint of his teeth. He's still a polite distance away but she feels crowded, suddenly. 

" _No_ ," Elsa says, and her calf aches with the want to step back but she holds herself steady, the edge of the book cover biting into her fingers. "I do not dance. I have no wish to learn to dance. I am glad Anna has engaged you as it seems to make her very happy, but -" Elsa falters, and presses her tongue against the sharp edge of her teeth. 

He's not here for _her_. She can't possibly run him out of the castle because of the strange unsettlement he inspires in no one but her. 

"I think it's time you left for today," she finishes, not looking at him. "Will you return --"

"What will it take to get you to dance with me, Your Majesty?" Hans says, and, for a moment, she's breathless at his audacity.

Elsa draws everything in, holds herself steady, and finds the anger pooling to a dense core she can anchor herself to; "A miracle," she says, voice dry and cold. The summer heat invading the hall abates, for a breath.

"Then I will produce a miracle," he says, mouth caught in that lopsided smile, and he bows swift and shallow before he turns and leaves. Elsa feels oddly wrong-footed, unbalanced like her anger has hooked onto him and is trying to follow him out. She's the _queen_ , he can't just -

Hans slips through the door, and disappears out of sight.

He is _insufferable._

The name on her hand looms in her mind suddenly, bright and inexplicable. Elsa frowns and ignores it but, oh - of course. It's the uncertainty of an unknown thing, this stranger in her castle. Perhaps if she knows exactly who he is, she will stop feeling so unsettled by him. 

She'll ask Kai to look into it. Just for some peace of mind.


	4. Chapter 4

> iv.

Something traditional, Hans thinks, for today's lesson. Gerda isn't here yet but Anna is insisting they begin, her warm grin like a counterbalance to the weak daylight that barely makes the effort to squeeze through the shutters. He hums a slow beat as she begins to chatter, always so eager to talk to anyone, and pulls her through the steps.

He is, of course, thinking only of miracles. He knows parlour tricks and card games, sleight of hand that might amuse Elsa long enough to pull her into conversation, if he's lucky. The sight of her name burnt into his skin might be enough but he can't reveal that, not yet, not when acceptance is so uncertain. There's a pull between them that sings through his skin, and he wants desperately to believe that he's not the only one afflicted; perhaps he should just make the chance to kiss her, find out if the legends of blinding lights and earthquakes are true, declare a miracle in the religion of her mouth -

"Elsa!" Anna calls, surprised and breathless and Hans catches the briefest glimpse of her wide eyes fixed somewhere behind him before he turns so sharply that Anna stumbles, her foot knocking hard into his. 

Queen Elsa stands framed in the doorway, as though he conjured her with his thoughts. Her cheeks are tinged pink but she holds the rest of herself as cold and stately as the grey afternoon, her hands neatly folded in front of her, and she's staring at him with an intensity that catches in his chest and floods fast and hot through his ribs. His heart is pounding. 

There's your miracle, he thinks, stupid with desire as the ballroom rings with sudden stillness.

"Forgive me, Anna," Elsa says, her eyes darting a fraction to his left and back. "I would like a word with Prince Hans," she says, and his too-fast heart skips a beat.

"What?" Anna says, her hands stiff in his loose grip. Hans blinks, and drops them.

"Of course, Your Majesty," he says, and then, to Anna, "Excuse me, Your Highness." He only meets her eye for a second, catches the confusion etched around her mouth and dismisses it as he bows deep and turns to stride away.

"Wha-," she says softly behind him, and then, "Hey!" but she doesn't make a move to follow and Hans keeps going, the space across the ballroom floor stretching endless as Elsa watches him, impassive and unreadable and yet so focused that the thrill of it thrums through him. 

It echoes in his pulse when he's a few paces from the door and Elsa lifts her chin. She studies him in a flash from jaw to toe before she jerks her head, shaking something off, and turns away. "Follow me," she says, with a twitch to throw it behind her as she starts to walk down the corridor.

As if he could do anything else. The ballroom door shuts behind him with a deep click, cutting off the heavy silence, and he trots to catch up just as Elsa turns the corner. The soft daylight streams blue through the glass, patterning the rug in perfect triangles.

"How may I assist, Your Majesty?" he asks, falling into step beside her.

Her head jerks towards him a fraction, like she doesn't dare to look him now that he's so close. "You're not going to deny it?"

"I never lied about my name," he says, truthfully. He works best in omissions, the unnecessary parts of himself held back.

She huffs, a half-hitch of her breath that could almost be a laugh. "No," she agrees, and Hans glances at her as she presses her lips together for a moment. "I asked my steward about you. I called you Anna's dance tutor and he called you Hans Westergaard and I nearly --" she cuts herself off, sucking in a breath.

Elsa stops suddenly and turns towards him, her fingers linked together as she looks anywhere but at him. They're almost at her library, on the spot where they first met.

"I apologise for not being entirely forthcoming," Hans says, as Elsa lets her lip slide out from under her teeth and sets her jaw. 

"Why are you here?" she asks, and finally meets his eye like an accident. Her expression slips - it's the slightest widening of her eyes, a softening around her mouth, but it hits him as sharply as a scream; whatever this is, _she feels it too_. 

"To meet you," he says, and that open expression is gone in a breath. She looks ill, suddenly. "Elsa -" he starts, reaching for her arm, but she pulls away.

There's silence for a beat, then Elsa wets her lips and squares her shoulders. "Show me your hand," she says, and he pulls off his glove without hesitation. He holds his hand out palm up, wrist askew so Elsa can see her name across his skin with the slightest tilt of her head - and for a moment he's so transfixed by the words, somehow deeper and darker than he's ever noticed before, that all he registers is her shaky indrawn breath.

He corrects himself; watches her face as her gaze travels from his palm to the sliver of his wrist not hidden by his shirt, so slow that he can almost feel the caress of it. "So you're supposed to _complete_ me?" she whispers.

Hans frowns, but only because she's not looking at him. "I was always told my true love would balance me," he says, and moves his empty glove to his bare hand, reaching for her with the other.

Elsa steps back sharply, her heel almost catching against the wall. "I see," she says quietly, and looks at his chest as though she's not seeing it at all. He watches carefully, cautiously, waiting for her to move first.

Her gaze, eventually, flicks up to meet his but she's gone again in an instant, looking past his shoulder as she draws herself up and swallows, her jaw working despite her closed lips. She wets them, and then, "You have to go," Elsa says, as though she's just come to a sad and well-read conclusion.

"What?" 

She seems incapable of looking at him, suddenly. "I can't do this. I can't be with you. Please go."

"Elsa," he starts, and of course he planned for the possibility of rejection, steeled himself with every kind of plea to change her mind, but he can't do that if he doesn't know _why_. "I've spent my entire life trying to find you," he says, offering the truth like bait, and Elsa just closes her eyes, and draws in a deep breath like she's about to call for her guards -

"May I write to you?" Hans cuts across.

"What?" she says, her eyes flying open, tight and confused and fixed on him.

"May I write to you? If I have to leave now, without even kissing you," - she flushes pink, her steady gaze faltering - "can I at least get to know you from a distance?"

Elsa recovers and stares at him for a beat, a twitch in her brows before she looks away and considers the carpet. If anyone gave him this ultimatum he would say yes just to make them leave - she's considering it as though she actually means to stick to her answer, her mouth pulled small and tight and pained. 

"Yes," she says, eventually, without looking up. "I suppose."

An odd sort of relief, closer to pride, washes through him. If he had to leave in the very next moment he imagines she would keep her word. It's quite wonderful to know, to have the beginnings of a safety net.

"Thank you," he says, as deep and sincere as he can.

Elsa doesn't looks relieved at all, pressed against the wall, still not looking at him. "Now will you leave?" she sighs.

"There is one more thing," he risks, putting one foot closer without shifting his weight. It catches her eye anyway - her gaze flicks up to him with knife-edge sharpness and he stills, as though caught. She reacts like a cornered animal to everything; constantly alert, endlessly ready to defend herself. But from _what_?

"May I see your hand?" he asks. She hesitates. "And then I will go without another word," he lies, because clearly that is everything she wants. He will lean on that as much as he has to until he knows why.

Elsa seems to study him carefully for a long, slow moment, and wets her lips in a way that makes him think that's her own cue for the end of a decision. "Okay," she says, and sets her shoulders back, visibly steeling her always-straight spine. "But - don't touch me," she says, and, well. That pushes a few possibilities to the foreground. 

He doesn't say anything as the lie would be so easy to catch, but Elsa is so focused on tugging off her glove finger by finger that she takes his silence as a promise. She's careful to the point of reverence in pulling off the whole thing, for a moment staring at her bare palm before taking a breath and holding her hand across the space between them like something precious, a rare offering she's afraid of dropping. 

But that doesn't quite matter, because there's his name, stark and brilliant across her palm. He's never been less than certain it would be there but it's a sharp reminder, of sorts; an anchor to everything he is.

Nothing ever came to him by being timid. 

He has her hand between his fingers and an arm around her waist before her eyes can widen at how close he is, her lips just parting in surprise as he covers them with his mouth and kisses her like an exclamation point. 

A lightning strike of heat rushes through him at every point where they're touching. Her arm is caught against his chest and her mouth is warm and open under his and he can't regret a single thing that brought him here because _Elsa's kissing back_. In every quiet fantasy about this moment he always imagined she would be tentative, shy and trembling, but she surges against him like they're underwater and she's been drowning - and all he can do is let go of her hand and pull her flush against him, hold on as she kisses him thoroughly.

This is better than anything he ever allowed himself to imagine. The too-fast beat of his heart had settled but suddenly it's beating all the harder, overwhelmed by the closeness. She steals the air from his mouth as her hand curls around the nape of his neck, her bare fingers electric against his skin - and it's possible he didn't consider what effect his _true love_ might have on him. This was meant to be about convincing her but he's overwhelmed completely, hopelessly lost from the first touch of her mouth. _How foolish_ , some distant part of him thinks, but right now it doesn't quite matter.

" _Elsa_ ," he whispers, meaning nothing by it but to taste her on his tongue, but she startles as though he pinched her and suddenly there's something sharply cold on his neck, like someone shoved a handful of snow down his collar. 

Hans prides himself on perfect control over his own body, but even he can't stop the shudder racing down his spine. He jerks back without wanting to, a sudden and unwanted abyss between them.

"I'm sorry," Elsa says, eyes wide and terrified, and then, "You have to go," she repeats like an old mantra, and clutches her hands to her chest as she runs to library and slams the door behind her. The lock clicks loud and final. 

Hans can only stare after her for a few long breaths, convincing the panic out of his lungs, and then he brushes his hand across his neck and finds it dusted with tiny, sparkling ice crystals, already melting in the heat of his skin. He brushes the rest away, presses the flat of his hand against his neck properly, rolls his head. The skin is cold but not numb, smooth and undamaged. His lips are tingling and his heart is still pounding and his spine is locked shock straight, but he's fine. Unhurt.

The love of his life creates ice with her bare hands. 

That's... something to consider.

 

 

It certainly explains a lot of things, now that he thinks about it. 

 

 

"Elsa," he calls, soft and imploring through the door. He's knocked, once, for the show of politeness and his hands are bare, his gloves neatly tucked away. His pulse is steady under his skin.

"Go away!" Elsa half-shouts back. It sounds as though she's struggling to contain it, her voice hoarse and quiet as though she's holding everything back so nothing can slip out.

Hans presses his tongue against the rough edges of his teeth, jaw pulling to the side as he thinks. It's easiest when all he has to do is react. People are so sloppy with their ambitions, their thoughts spilling out of them like oil, and it's no effort at all to be like ice in return and reflect it back without any of it polluting him.

Trying to mirror a locked door is a challenge.

"You can't hide from this," he says, and bites the inside of his cheek as silence hangs for a long, heavy breath.

"Yes, I can," she says, quieter, still rough and low. She might be closer to the door - the hesitation in her reply as she risked a step towards him.

"Can I come in?"

"No!" she calls back sharp and immediate. She must be holding her breath as she waits for him to reply, horrified at the slightest crack in her defence, so eager to get rid of him that she'll push herself too hard. 

He thinks rapidly, and makes a leap.

"Either I come in, or I go back to Anna," he says, and leaves the threat as implied as he can manage, when he isn't quite certain it's a threat - the only certainty he has is that Anna can't possibly know about Elsa's powers. She would have told him in an instant if she did.

The silence stretches. He doesn't want to mention her magic, not yet, not here where he can't see her face, but if she hasn't caught on he will spell it out -

There's a click, as the bolt falls back. The door swings open and Elsa stands with one gloved hand on the door, sunlight bright against her back, every inch of her radiating fury even as she holds herself calm and steady with just a tightness in the corner of her mouth. Her eyes are bright and narrow as they sweep over him, an answering prickle in his skin like she's sticking in pins to hold him in place. 

Perhaps Anna is too sensitive a pressure point to be leaning on, when the mystery of it is still volatile. But, at least, the door is open, even if Elsa looks a breath away from slamming it.

"Why _are_ you here, Prince Hans? Why have you spent the last four days teaching my sister to _dance_?"

"I wasn't pretending. She's grown very adept at the waltz -" he starts, and when Elsa draws in a breath to cut across his wilful obtuseness he corrects himself: "I had to find a way into the castle. You never responded to any of my letters."

Elsa narrows her eyes, her lips pulling tight. "You never respond to anyone's advances, as far as I could discover," Hans adds, risking the truth in the hope she won't look beyond it. 

"Of course not," she snaps. Her gaze flicks over him like a flame and then past, leaving him cold as she stares unseeing down the corridor, her hand flexing against the door. "I couldn't make it obvious I was only avoiding the Southern Isles," she says, and ducks her head as she presses her lips together.

"All that trouble, just for me?" he says, not resisting the urge to let his delight spill across his mouth. "I'm flattered. I've made a point of visiting every possible country so it wasn't obvious I was making my way here, but that is admirable, Your Majesty."

"It clearly didn't work well enough," she says, looking up at him and away again just as quickly, and he hadn't accounted for this thing that's settled into his bones, that pulses harder for every moment they aren't touching. It must be the curse - he has no doubt now she has the same longing, the way her fingers twitch every time she looks at him.

Neither of them move. How perfectly matched we are, he thinks. 

"Elsa," he starts, just as she says, "You have to go," like it pains her. At last, he can address this. Perhaps she just needs reassurance -

"On my honour, I will not tell a soul," he says, pressing a hand against his chest. "I am sorry for startling you, but I truly only came here for the chance to get to know you. Your magic is beautiful -"

"It's dangerous," Elsa says, wrapping her arms around herself. Her anger has drained away and now she just looks _scared_ , small and delicate and pulling herself in, seemingly determined that even the air mustn't touch her. Curious, he thinks, thinking of her hand warm and electric against his skin until the cold burst across it. It was only a handful of frost along his collar.

"Surely it cannot be that bad," Hans says.

"Yes, it is. _I'm_ dangerous," she says, hushed and desperate. "That's why you have to leave, I'm just trying to protect you -"

"I'm not afraid of you," he says, and doesn't step forward so much as shift his stance, as though the fact his foot is now over the threshold and holding the door open is of no consequence. He keeps his eyes on hers, his chin lowered, every angle of himself unthreatening in its restraint. 

His skin aches with the need to be closer to her, the ghost of their kiss still resting on his mouth, but even this slightest advance sets her swaying back from him. "Your magic is nothing to be afraid of," he says, as though it's not a question.

"I cannot touch _anything_ ," she insists.

"I don't believe you," he baits.

" _What_?" Elsa says, eyes bright and narrow and furious as she whips her head up, her hands dropping to her side. He takes a deliberate step closer and Elsa withdraws, the distance between them unchanging like equal poles between magnets until he can wrap a hand around the edge of the door and gently shut it behind him. Elsa takes another unsure step back, and then plants her heel and links her fingers together, every inch of her a challenge.

"You had your hand buried in my hair and yet here I stand, perfectly well," he says, and bites down his delight at the sudden blush across her cheeks, the way she holds his gaze steady anyway. "You must be overestimating your strength. Your powers cannot be that terrible and destructive."

Her eyes blink wide, lips silently parted and she looks, for a moment, so openly shocked that Hans almost relents. Clearly, of all possible reactions to her magic she had never considered _disbelief_.

"Tell me the real reason why you keep refusing me, and I will go," he pushes, and her flush of pink blooms red and stunning, sharpened by her anger.

"Fine," she snaps, a knife-edge flash of teeth. Her hands clutch at her arms for a breath before she forces them down to her sides. "I'll show you."

The thrill of victory rushes through him, but he holds his expression intently curious as Elsa spins on the ball of her foot and strides across to the sideboard that lines up behind the chaise longue, facing the empty fireplace. There's a chessboard set to play and a stack of books beside it, grey and dusty with age. 

He follows a pace behind. Elsa scoops up the books and thrusts them into his arms, whipping her gloves off her unsteady hands and smacking them down on top. "Hold these and - stay out of the way," she says, her voice faltering with her anger, and she swallows something down before she turns her back on him again and walks around to stand in front of the chessboard, the light pouring over her back.

The delight of it sings through his skin. Has she never been _goaded_ before?

Her chin is tilted down, but he still catches the way her eyes dart to him and back as he takes a step closer. For a beat he thinks she might say something, warn him further away, but instead she takes a breath, deep and obvious, and with her hands parallel to the floor she reaches down and gently, gently touches her trembling fingers to the edge of the chessboard.

Bright white frost bursts from under her hands. A pawn is knocked askew, the wood cracking until it splits in half and gets lost under the wave of ice that covers the board, sharp and glittering and not stopping - curved ferns of it bloom delicate across the sideboard but grow fast and vicious like splinters, and Elsa draws in a shaky breath and snatches her hands back as the wood becomes an untouchable forest of cut glass spikes, growing outwards from the point of her hands like a barricade. Some are longer than her forearm.

The air rings with silence, a held breath, the faint ping of rapid temperature change. 

"See?" she says, cradling her hands against her chest, soft and quiet as though the storm has rushed through and left her drained, and Hans is almost surprised to find himself rocking forward on his toes. His pulse is steady under his skin. He has the most reckless urge to kiss her hands.

He makes the move deliberate - drops the books onto the chaise longue and keeps hold of her gloves, and Elsa twists her bare fingers around themselves as he steps close enough to brush a fingertip along one spike, so cold that it tries to stick to his skin. She doesn't move her head but her eyes dart to him, holding herself entirely still as though the only way to contain it is to not move at all.

"That your powers are as beautiful as you? I could not fail to," he says, and watches that hit like a rainstorm, her shoulders slumping with a sigh. 

"I cannot touch anything," Elsa repeats, letting her hands drop without untangling them. "Sometimes I make it snow, and I can't make it stop. One winter I destroyed an entire room because I -- let my emotions overwhelm me," she says, wetting her lips as she looks away. "I've spent my life trying to control it, but _I can't_. My powers have hurt people. I can't risk hurting you," she says, and when she finally turns her head back her eyes are over-bright and her cheeks are pink and every fibre of him belongs to her, as something hooks hot and low in his stomach.

"How do you control it?" he grasps onto, before she can tell him to leave again.

"I - I hide it. I conceal it."

No wonder that's not working. Pretending something's not there doesn't make it go away. 

"But the gloves help?" Hans prompts, rubbing the hem between his fingers. They're winter-thick and delicately embroidered, lined with silk and long enough to cover a handspan above her wrists, but he would be surprised if there's anything magical about them. He lives on the power of presentation, the trick of looking the part - when he was fourteen he convinced Henrik he had a brooch that made him irresistible, and gave it to him in exchange for his first official visit to another kingdom. The trip had been informative, but exciting solely for its novelty. The news of Henrik's humiliation when he returned made the subsequent two year long snubbing entirely worth it.

He knows how eager people are to put belief in things outside of themselves. If she thinks they work, then, sure, they probably do.

"They're the only thing that do," she sighs, and then glances sharply at him, as though she's only just remembered he has them. "Give them to me," she demands, and he passes them over without hesitation. There's the slightest apologetic twitch in his mouth as their fingers brush, fixed in place, and Elsa doesn't seem to notice as she focuses on covering her skin as quickly as possible.

He pulls his hands behind his back as he watches her, holding himself formal and restrained and polite as he rubs his thumb over his fingertips. The phantom touch of her hand tingles like it's still hovering just above his skin but it's perfectly warm, not a hint of ice.

I can't touch anything, she said, but that's not quite it. It's not contact that makes her powers jump. She managed to kiss him until she was startled, manages to hold her gloves without frosting them over, was clearly distressed to the point of trembling when she placed her hands over the chessboard and the ice burst gleefully from her fingertips.

I let my emotions overwhelm me, she had said. An elemental kind of magic linked tight to her moods, then - and anyone could argue that he's desperately far out of his depth, but he wouldn't be here if he wasn't exceptional at understanding people. The magic is hers to control, but he survives on the trick of feeling everything and holding himself like ice, only letting it shine through the facets he cares to let anyone see; not repressing it. Focusing it.

Elsa finishes checking her hands are perfectly covered, and looks up at him. He wants, oh, so many things, but the simplest is _Arendelle_ and the most recent is _Elsa_ , and he gets what he wants by giving others what they need. Right now all Elsa needs is someone with a vested interest in her no longer looking at her hands like they're a spark above gunpowder. 

It's suddenly, perfectly obvious what he has to do.


	5. Chapter 5

> v.

This is ridiculous, Elsa tells herself, but dusk has painted the gardens in a limited palette of blue and she's a shadow among the arches, creeping away from the warm light that spills out of the castle doors.

"I can help," he had said, so soft and caring that like a fool she had listened. The brief moment where she let someone see her powers and saw nothing but fascination in their eyes must have left her giddy, because when he asked her to show him more she had only deferred - to this, here, the castle gardens in the first blush of night. 

It's not an entirely unwise place to be. It's dark and private and filled with nothing but plants, and if she were planning on doing something stupid it would be perfect - but the rest of the long summer day gave her time to indulge in the fantasy of him and then come to her senses, the lightness left in her veins filling in with familiar fear. A single moment of not being terrified cannot overrule a lifetime of knowing how easily her powers overwhelm her. 

She's too dangerous. He needs to leave.

(Except - "I don't think my name would be on your hand if I wasn't meant to help you," he had said, and she can't stop thinking about the brief moment when he held her gaze and she felt as though her powers were perfectly aligned in her fingertips. Beneath the terror of seeing how far her ice would spread when given the slightest chance there was the most reckless urge to do _more_ , to keep pushing until there was nothing left, to see how powerful she really was.

She can't. Of course she's can't.)

Now she's oddly thankful he agreed on the gardens, close and easy and secluded. He suggested going further, finding their way into the mountains for perfect solitude, but she's not so much of a fool that she would go _hiking_ in the _middle of the night._

She's only here to tell him to go, and be done with it. She has no time for fantasies.

The garden stretches out narrow between the castle and the battlements, every shape flattened into shadows as night drips in like honey, and yet she spots Hans as though he's standing in a spotlight - leaning down as he studies a rose bush, dressed bold and fitted and holding himself tightly formal even when there's no one there to impress. He's angled away and it's too dark to see his face properly but there's no one else it could be, waiting for her in the middle of the castle gardens. 

Even if she wasn't certain it was him, the sudden pounding of her heart would be a clear hint. She wonders if his beats as hard, every time he sees her. She wonders if it's just the curse. 

He looks up suddenly, and she can see the brightness of his smile even from here. 

"Elsa," he says, warmly surprised, and the _you have to go_ that's been rolling around her mouth for hours is suddenly sticking to her tongue. 

"Hi," she says, a little breathless. _Stop it_ , she thinks. "I'm sorry, but you have to -"

"Have you seen these?" he says as though he didn't hear her, gesturing to the thing she assumed was a rose bush. "It only blooms at night. The scent is exquisite."

If he thinks she doesn't know what he's doing - but even she can't stop herself drawing breath as she tells herself not to be so easily distracted. The air is cold and crisp and laced with something sweet, stirred up by the day's heat and then caught in the dusk, and she steps closer even as she calls herself a fool.

If she's quite honest, she was lost from the moment she agreed to come out here. "It's lovely," she agrees, and feels ridiculous with it. _Tell him to leave_.

He seems perfectly at ease, in a way that makes her all the more aware of how her palms are itching and her heart is still heavy against her chest and that there's a fire under her skin that flickers every time he looks at her. Hans closes the distance between them, the garden sprawling out around them like they're the centrepiece, a study in hesitation.

"May I hold your gloves?" he asks, and, oh. He really means to do this again.

"I don't think that would be wise," she says, twisting her hands tight together. Hans, if anything, smiles wider, the glint of his teeth sharp in the scattered moonlight. 

"If you prefer, we could just talk," he says, and steps closer, and there's nothing improper about the way he's holding himself but, strangely, she's suddenly very warm, the memory of their brief kiss tingling like a breeze on her lips. 

He looks around when she doesn't reply, and angles his arm as though he's offering it. "Or perhaps you would join me in a turn around the garden?" he says, his eyes as green and smooth as polished peridot when ingrained politeness forces her to meet them - and a surge of longing rocks through her so violently that her breath catches. 

Her heart thuds hard, just in case she was considering denying how much she wants him. Her skin prickles with the need to be closer, a want to take his arm and let herself have this, but the only thing worse than letting her powers fly free would be to indulge in the fantasy of him without the safety of _distance._

Powers it is, then. "I believe you asked me here because you think you can help me," Elsa says, linking her fingers like an underscore, and he nods even though that's not quite true, even though they're both perfectly aware that she should be telling him to go instead of drawing this out.

"I know I can," he says, his head tilted down, eye wide and imploring, and she wants quite desperately to believe him but there's no trick hidden in his hands or the grass or the night that could possibly control this, no matter how sincerely he looks at her. "May I take your gloves?" 

"No," she says, lifting her chin. "Not until you tell me what you plan to do."

"It would be easier to just show you."

"Tell me."

Hans sighs. "Fine," he says, and walks past her, brushing close enough that Elsa stiffens, bracing for the impertinence of a touch - except nothing comes. His presence feels like gravity along her skin but when she turns he's a clear foot away, standing neat and formal. 

"I plan to stay out of your way," he says. "While you stop resisting your magic."

Elsa stares at him, at the polite distance between them that isn't nearly enough. "What?"

"All you need to do is direct it." 

She is, for the moment, completely unable to think of anything to say. "I -" she starts, but Hans must realise it's not going to be agreement as he steps closer, pressing, and cuts straight across.

"Isn't it tiring, constantly forcing your powers down?"

"I suppose," Elsa says, carefully, looking down at her hands. It is, if she's honest, such an ingrained part of her life that the constant fatigue is hardly worth mentioning. 

"Then stop," he says, and leans closer still. "Focus on letting your magic go."

"But -"

" _Please_ , Elsa," he says, and she makes the mistake of looking at him again. Her breath catches and that selfish little part of her she keeps so carefully boxed away - that ignores every reason for the walls built around her and bangs on them anyway, that remembers what it was like to make a ballroom snow just because she wanted to - says _yes_.

"There's no one here but me," Hans says, as Elsa just stares at him. _Yes_ , she wants to say, foolish and ridiculous and consistent with it, apparently, but her heart is hammering in a way that has nothing to do with him. "You don't have to be afraid."

But she _is_ , and that just makes her magic all the more unstable. She clutches her hands tighter, pulling them close to her chest. 

She should walk away. She should tell him to leave and go hide in her bedchamber and wait for - what? To calm down? To hope that this isn't one of those days when even the gloves can't seem to hold it in?

"May I hold your gloves?" Hans asks, soft as a charm. "I will give them back the moment you ask but, please, Elsa. You will never control it unless you try."

 _Yes_ , she thinks, some distant thought on the power of three and something in her chest settles, an odd kind of calm washing over her. She's so used to feeling afraid that accepting it feels almost like a relief - her heart is still too fast but steady in it, like a call to action instead of the sign that she needs to run and hide until the storm passes.

"You must stay back," she says, her voice quiet, as loud as she can manage without it cracking unsteady, and Hans straightens his spine as she starts to pull off her gloves finger by finger. She can feel him watching her, and when she holds out her gloves and meets his gaze he looks - awed, maybe, his mouth fractionally slack with surprise.

"Of course," he says, and holds her gloves as though they might try to escape. Elsa pushes out a breath, and turns her back on him. 

She can feel the breeze over her back of her hands, as she curls up her fingers. _Just stop_ , she thinks. It's just like touching her fingertips to the chessboard - her magic knows exactly what it wants to do. All she has to do is let it go.

Hans is silent and unknowable behind her, but she's glad he's there in a fierce kind of way that almost surprises her. She gets carried away if there's no one there to stop her, gets trapped in her own head and comes back to herself to find the room glittering and impossibly still, the dust frozen in the air.

 _Getting upset only makes it worse._ Elsa takes a breath, and like biting back tears she stops fighting the inevitable; lets everything well up to join the oxygen burning dully in her chest, lets the urge to breathe build up in her throat and her shoulders and her palms, lets her magic throb like a pulse under her skin and holds it just long enough to focus, to set her eyes on the rose bush and _let go_ \- 

And ice, brilliant and opaque, paints the garden in a stripe between her and the frost-covered flowers. The rushing breeze of it sounded almost like a gasp and now there are spikes lining the way like a fence but the grass is delicately edged, each blade catching the scant moonlight and scattering it between them, and her hands are outstretched in front of her and she - she did that. 

Elsa looks at her hands. There's nothing stopping her doing _more._

There's a willow tree to her right and she hardly has to think before her magic is sparkling through the air, a streak of potential before the bowed branches become a chandelier of icicles, every leaf thickly coated like raindrops and glittering even in the low light. 

It's beautiful, and not enough - she bites her lip and turns again, the corner of her eye catching the trail of Hans stepping sharply out of the way and that sobers her, slightly; but she's always had that secret impulse to show off, and there's a focus to her powers she hasn't felt in _years_. 

Before the accident, before she knew what real fear was, she used to make doll houses and stables and miniature castles out of ice just to play with them. She used to dream up towers and courtyards and battlements that sprawled nonsensical and childish, but the clear glitter of her ice always made them strong. She was never allowed to make anything big, for so many reasons, but she always wanted a summer house. 

Elsa faces the wide expanse of stone-pocked lawn, Hans somewhere safely behind her, and focuses. It used to be that all it took was a single touch of her fingertips to the table to make the castles start growing, even when she was wearing her traditional gloves - _perhaps_ , she thinks, and delicately picks up her skirts by an inch and extends her foot.

Her leather-covered toe touches down, taps once, and a snowflake blooms across the grass. It grows fast and dazzlingly blue, splitting and spreading as it pushes up and Elsa takes two quick steps back before it can catch her feet. The air bites colds but her chest is clear and light and bubbling over with the urge to laugh, or shout, or _something_ , because this is hers. She's really doing this.

The snowflake spreads until it's twice as wide as her arms could reach, and Elsa thinks; the columns, next. She lifts her hands as the base fills out and spines burst up at every corner, climbing and fracturing all at once so the balustrade glitters into being as arches outline the walls. Half fill out in angular snowflakes, shining thick and solid. Steps spill out onto the grass and every hip of the roof fills out and spreads until her summer house stands bright and shimmering, tiny and strange in the castle gardens but somehow all the more wonderful for it.

She did that. Her magic created that.

Elsa takes another slow step back, marvelling up at it, and bumps against something behind her.

"Oh!" Hans says, his hands going straight to her waist to steady her. Elsa sucks in a breath and goes rigid as it burns in her lungs - and then she turns and pulls away, half a step between them as she presses a hand on her chest.

"That was magnificent," he says, and the giddiness is still right there, pulsing under her palm. 

"I - I controlled it," Elsa says, breathless to the point of laughing. Her happiness must be catching as Hans smiles wide and soft, looking at her with an intensity that fans the embers under her skin, and she's not quite done with wanting things - he makes her feel safe and reckless all at once, the urge to do something ridiculous and the courage to follow it.

But mostly she wants to kiss him again, and even now that seems too absurd to indulge in so she blinks, looks at the grass, walks away instead; tentatively approaches her summer house and drifts her hand along the railing that sparkles above the steps. The ice clicks and echoes as she climbs up but it's wonderfully solid beneath her. Hans follows, the frost crunching under his boots. 

It's better than any doll house she ever made. There's a snowflake etched into the platform, deep in the ice like a signature, and her expression must be doing something strange because Hans is watching her carefully when she feels his gaze and glances up, finds him at the top of the steps with one hand curled around a column.

"It's incredible," he says, and for once she's not moved to argue with him. She feels impossibly light, as though she could scale a mountain in a single step.

"Thank you," she says, laughing through it as she glances up at the translucent ribs of the ceiling. "I never thought I would be able to do - _this_."

"You did ask for a miracle," Hans jokes, stepping closer until his feet are over the heart of the snowflake. "Now will you dance with me?" he asks, and holds his hand out.

Elsa can't help herself - she laughs, gently and unapologetic. She's loosened, unable to hide a thing. "I believe you were just looking for an excuse to touch me," she says, accidental flirtation and Hans's smile spreads wicked, delighted, a promise of all the things she's not letting herself have. 

She bites her lip, and turns away. The garden glitters in front of her as her hands curl over the balustrade and Hans steps closer, his footsteps loud across the ice.

"Of course," he says, not touching her at all but her skin thrums like it's reaching back for him and something hooks low in her stomach at just the thought of it; waiting for him to move. "I only wanted to help so I could kiss you again," he whispers, teasing, but still it sings straight down her spine.

His fingertips touch either side of her waist, the barest pressure that tingles like a lightning strike. There's a dry warmth against her neck and her magic is quiet and content and she could do anything and - she can't resist this. She can't set herself loose in one huge way and hold back everything else. Perhaps it's just another cruel facet of the curse but she needs to be near him with an intensity she didn't know she was capable of; visceral and instinctual and all the way down to her bones, like every fragment of herself is magnetised to him. 

She hopes, quite desperately, a manic dash of a thought, that he feels the same way.

"Hans," Elsa starts, but even as she turns his arm wraps around her waist and his mouth meets hers halfway, the first soft touch of his lips burning any sensible thought away to smoke. Kissing him is like the opening of floodgates - she couldn't stop the surge of it if she tried, overwhelmed with the need to be drowned in him, and even as her lips part and he pours in closer she needs _more_.

Her hands are still bare but she isn't thinking of that at all as she winds them around his neck, combing up into his hair as his mouth slides wet and perfect against hers. Hans makes a sound, low and rough in a way that sinks straight through her and he has her pinned against the balustrade, both hands still on her waist. His own rush of intensity melts slow and focused; kissing her like he never intends to stop.

 _Good_ , she thinks, heavy-lidded nonsense as a light kind of heat bubbles through her, warmth spilling from her fingertips. The surge abates, satisfied, and eventually Elsa pulls away without thinking about it at all, sways back just enough that they're sharing air without their mouths touching. 

His eyes are closed when she glances up. His lips are parted like he's waiting for her to come back - and she would, except now instead all she wants to do is look at him. In that hanging breath he's silent and open and entirely for her. She worries at her lip until he opens his eyes and watches his smile bloom in time, letting her hands slip down to his shoulders.

It feels like the summer warmth has slunk back into their pocket of the garden, as Hans studies her face with a honey-like intensity and Elsa lets herself look back, thinking of all the ways she could have this. Her mouth begs to mirror his, happiness pulling at the corner of her lips, and she could just lean back in and kiss him all over again - but then his gaze slips past her ear and he blinks surprised, staring at something that fills the space behind her.

Fear bursts cold in her chest. She doesn't wait to think - she spins out of his grip, throat seizing tight and her hands clutching for the railing as she turns, and --

Her first thought is that it's snowing, but it's going the wrong way. 

The ice she painted across the garden is drifting upwards, the frost dissolving into glitter that shimmers in the moonlight like moths. There's a whirl of it stirring in a sharp breeze but the sparkle is already slowing as Elsa just stares, open-mouthed because she's never seen anything like it; her ice, undoing itself.

Her grip on the balustrade twitches, and the soft snow in front of her jerks an inch closer, and then carries on gently tumbling upwards.

"Are you doing that?" Hans asks, still just behind her, his hands warm and sure either side of her waist.

"No," Elsa says, immediate and bemused, but it's her ice. What else would be controlling it?

She tilts her hand up, the base of her palm still pressed against the railing as she curls her fingers, and Elsa holds herself like a statue when the loose snow draws itself lazily together like a snowglobe in the middle of the gardens. She stretches her fingers and the ice gently scatters.

There's the oddest kind of warmth filling her. Perhaps, she thinks, a sub-thought to the image of snowballs as she draws the ice back together again - perhaps, her breath picking up, the excitement of an impossible probability filling her, perhaps if she can pull it out of the potential of the air she can put it back, and she spreads her fingers and -

Yes. It's gone, just a glimpse of glitter in the moonlight before there's nothing but shadows filling the garden. She can get rid of it.

She _can get rid of it_.

Elsa looks away from the darkness laid out in front of her and stares instead at her hands, pale and small in the midnight. There's a sudden familiar terror in her chest, the panic that she's mislaid her gloves, the sight of bare skin like a spark over gunpowder, but - but -- oh, God, what if she can't do it again? And her powers can still _hurt_ people, if they get too close, if she forgets herself, and surely she can't undo that as easily as waving her hands -

"Elsa," Hans says, like an anchor, and slips his arms further around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. His warmth holds solid and reassuring against her spine and Elsa doesn't relax, exactly, but her fingers loosen their grip on the railing. "You can do this," he says. 

"But I don't know -" 

"Of course you do," he says, and dips close to brush his mouth along her neck, the nudge of his lips against her jaw so intimate that heat rushes through her, a jerk of surprise in her shoulders. She doesn't know if it's meant to be a distraction or just a need to touch her but it's working regardless, everything softening with the warmth sparking in her ribs.

She's half-sunk against him when his mouth finds her ear again. "You can control this," he promises, and some easy part of her believes him. Look at everything she did when she just stopped fighting it - the acceptance sinking through her skin and bones and fingertips, a lightness in her touch that spiralled into the ice, every form coming easy as a thought.

"It's not always that easy," she sighs, eyes closed.

"Then practice," Hans counters, and kisses the skin almost hidden by her hairline. "All you have to do is focus."

"That's somewhat difficult right now," Elsa says, half-lost, dream-like, and catches herself smiling when Hans laughs soft and wonderful against her skin. It wakes her up like the first glimmer of sunlight, dawning bright and breathless and like a promise of something dazzling. _You don't have to be afraid_ , she thinks, and lets it fill crystal cold in her chest.

"Step back," she says, purpose straightening her spine, and Hans obeys with treacle immediacy. 

She waits until she can no longer feel his warmth against her back, until she's certain she's standing alone, and then Elsa takes a breath, and makes it snow.


	6. Chapter 6

> vi.

_My queen_ , he thinks, as Elsa bows her head and waits for the crown to be gently placed over her hair. 

He can't see if her hands are shaking as she slips off her gloves, but they've practised this for hours until it was just her bare hands under his, his fingers curling around hers, her smile warm and steady as she looked only at him. He's indispensable, according to her. It would feel like a victory if he didn't need her with the same kind of intensity without a rational explanation of _use_ behind it. 

He is, if he's honest, unbalanced by the sudden settling of his life. He's familiar with the odd lull between one scheme finishing and finding the next, less of a held breath and more of one long slow exhale, but this - he's exactly where he means to be, the words _my true love_ meaning more than he ever thought possible, and he hasn't the faintest idea what to do next.

He's not used to having somewhere feel like _home_.

The bishop starts his blessing, rolling sonorous through the old vowels, and Elsa turns to stand haloed in sunlight as she holds the orb and sceptre. It's the least ostentatious coronation he's ever attended; the church is small and rustic, the attending crowd cramped together, but he's seated in the second row of pews and Elsa looks straight ahead, chin up and shoulders back and a determined sort of contentment on her face.

Hans watches her fingers curled around the gold, and feels an odd echo of her nerves rolling below his chest - her knuckles are almost white, a breath of autumn in the air, and despite her control growing every day he's half waiting for the glitter to creep from under her skin. There's an unsteady second when he both hopes she will look at him and desperately prays that she won't.

"Queen Elsa of Arendelle," the bishop calls, and Elsa doesn't turn around immediately - she holds herself steady for a beat, standing tall and true in front of her kingdom, before she turns and places the symbols of her power back on the cushion. Like a test of her control. Like she was preserving the moment. 

The congregation finds its feet and cheers for their queen, and when she turns back her smile is small and composed and made entirely of relief. Her gaze runs over the crowd, stopping nowhere in particular as she acknowledges their welcome, but her mouth pulls a fraction wider when she meets his eye.

There is one simple fact, wrapped up in every thought he has of her: whatever he does, it will be with Elsa at his side. Scheming purely for the sake of someone else's happiness is a first, for him, but he's always been good at changing plans between heartbeats. 

He can't help but smile back. 

 

 

This is what a party feels like: loud, and warm, and full of people who pay surprisingly little attention to her.

There's a lightness in her lungs she's not used to. It's a distant relation to the quiet pleasure she gets from a problem solving itself; a kind of happiness that holds warm and unmoving in the middle of her chest, and only flares a little brighter when she's palm to palm with Hans. 

The ease in her chest is among the cacophony of things she notices just as she wakes up, like distant noises and the warmth of her arms. It keeps catching her by surprise throughout the day, whenever she goes to pick something up and then dares herself to do it without the gloves, or spots Anna at the other end of the corridor and finds herself smiling instead of hurrying away. 

It's only been around for a few days, but she hopes it stays around for long enough to become unnoticed; that quiet happiness can be the baseline of her day, the way exhaustion and fear used to be.

"Hi," she says, after Anna is announced and edged in beside her, after the ballroom has melted back into music and dancing, and Anna grins bright and breathless.

(She had gasped and thrown herself into Elsa's arms when they showed her their matching palms, in an attempt to explain - and Elsa focused on the warmth instead of the fear, had let her gloved hand wrap around Anna's back, several layers of fabric between them, and embraced her for one perfect moment before she gently pushed her away and tugged her glove back on. Anna's smile didn't dim at all.

" _True love_ ," she had breathed, awed and longing. She forgives easily, given half the chance - and Elsa doesn't quite dare to dream but if she gets it under control, if she's truly no longer a danger, then perhaps --)

"Your Majesty. Prince Hans of the Southern Isles," Kai introduces, with unfailing politeness. 

Hans bows to both of them, and her breath catches when he looks back up. Her heart is steady in her chest but he still, somehow, makes her feel untethered. Anna waves with a fluttering arc of her hand. The music is lively, the dance some kind of twirling skip that she thinks she watched Hans teach Anna, and the heat of the crowd and the sweetness of the summer evening has soaked into her skin, leaving no room for anything tinted with midnight.

She could make it snow with a twist of her fingers, and she's fairly certain that she won't.

"May I have the honour of your first dance?" Hans asks, holding his hand out like an offering. 

"Yes", Elsa says, her smile as soft and warm as the rest of her, and leads the way.


End file.
